Electric computer games, Beast Mastery hunting and obscure references

It looks a lot like I’m back. Yeah, once again I took a two month break from Warcraft without ever actually deciding to do such a thing. Again I missed Lunar Festival (two in a row) and again I missed the two brewfest brews I need for the achievement (two for two on that also). It’s really odd how this happens every year without fail at the same time. Christmas is traditionally the time of year where I work the most for the longest hours, so you’d think I would have less time to play WoW and get worn out on it.

Anyway.

Some things have changed, clearly. My guild is mostly off playing Minecraft (as am I). We’ve built a magnificent town and I’m consistently impressed with the creative vision of my fellow miner-and-crafters. Me? I built a fortress. Stone for creeper-blast and fire protection. Living quarters elevated in a tower. Multiple overhangs to prevent spiders getting in. Access to personal mine. Self-contained lava-antilava reactor in the basement. Sufficient underground food production to supply several occupants indefinitely in the event of apocalypse. Next project: Find a really impressive mountain, build Ironforge.

Anyway.

Hunters can auto-shot while moving now! Astonishing! Completely unexpected. They stripped the “auto-shot while moving” functionality out of Aspect of the Fox really early during Cata testing, and now they’ve given it back to hunters except ALL THE TIME instead of just when Fox is active. This is surprising. I am surprised. This’ll mean big things for our combat mobility and kiting ability too. This is also more or less the end of our ability to excuse ourselves from being competent on high-movement fights. We lose the extra attack power from Aspect of the Dragonhawk, but that’s about it. I suppose we also have to concentrate on where we’re going as well as what we’re shooting and who we’re shooting which will take up some attention normally reserved for pushing the right buttons.

Blizzard seem to have removed the druid’s ability to break roots by shapeshifting. I disapprove. Sometimes it seems like they have something against ferals – Balance and Restoration are allowed to be different and unique, but Cat is like a rogue with less tools and Bear is like a warrior with less tools. One of the ways in which druids in general and ferals specifically are unique and better than their analogue classes is their ability to defeat CC by changing their shape – an ability absolutely central to Warcraft druidism. I think removing the druids’ ability to remove root effects is a mistake. With that said, reducing Bear’s swipe to a 3 second cooldown will help my levelling bear tank out a bit, so that’s good.

Anyway.

I suspect there’s a lot of things I haven’t discovered yet, and I need to relearn how to play my class. COMMENCE HUNTERING!